If you want mutltizone smart heating on a budget Drayton's Wiser is a great choice

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Drayton Wiser review

There are lots of smart heating systems to choose between. From big names such as Nest and Hive to lesser-known systems from Tado, Genuis and Netatmo. One name you’ve probably heard of is Drayton, one of the biggest brands in UK heating systems.

Its Wiser system aims to make the upgrade from dumb to smart heating as simple as possible, while also giving you a system that’s both easy to use as well as comprehensive.

And on the face of it, we think it has succeeded. There are various starter kits to suit different types of boiler, and multi-zone kits which include smart radiator valves that let you create heating zones without having to change any plumbing.

The kit is very simple to install if you have a standard old-style programmer wired up to your boiler. And everything else is wireless and battery powered so there should be no need to pay for an electrician to install it.

Drayton Wiser: Price

That’s good value considering most smart radiator valves (smart TRVs) cost between £50 and £70 each. Nest’s third-gen thermostat costs £179.99 on its own and as of yet, Nest hasn’t launched its own TRVs.

All-in-all, it’s one of the cheaper smart heating systems, yet it offers a surprising amount of flexibility.

Design

The control box uses the industry-standard connector so in a lot of cases, upgrading from your old manual heating programmer to the Wiser takes just a couple of minutes and a screwdriver. Note that on the one-channel kit the box has only a Heating button. On the two-channel version you also get a Hot Water button.

If it does need wiring up, diagrams are included in the installation instructions or you can pay an electrician to do this job for you if you’re not confident.

Then it’s a case of installing the Wiser app on your iPhone or Android phone, creating an account and using the on-screen instructions to set up the system, including connecting to your Wi-Fi network. In all, it should take you under 30 minutes.

The thermostat is wireless and powered by a pair of AA batteries. You can place this anywhere, and even take it from room to room. It has a decent colour display and clearly displays the current temperature, the programmed temperature and the current humidity level.

The only hiccup could be if your radiators don’t have compatible valves already, but several adapters are included for popular valve types.

Drayton has designed the TRVs well. They have a control on top so you can manually control the valve: turning towards + boosts temperature by 2 degrees, and decreases by the same when turned to -. Even though there’s no screen which shows the temperature, it’s still handy if guests are staying or you don’t want to fire up the app just to adjust the temperature of one radiator. Some smart TRVs (even those which cost more) have no manual control or temperature display at all.

The valves also self-calibrate when you first install them, which should ensure that they all work properly.

Features

The app itself is also well designed. The interface is clean and intuitive. You can set up a schedule just as you would with a traditional programmer. And thanks to the TRVs, you can also create schedules for individual rooms.

For example, you might install the valves in two bedrooms and set up a schedule so they’re not heated during the day, saving money in the process.

Alternatively, you might want the kitchen and bathroom to heat up earlier than other rooms. Whatever your preferences, the smart TRVs give you precise control over what happens when, so it’s well worth investing in a few more if you can afford it.

If you opt for the two- or three-channel version you will also be able to set schedules for when the hot water should be heated.

Naturally, you can use the app to control the system when you’re out. So if you’ve been away for a few day and you end up coming home earlier than expected, you can remotely turn on the heating so your home is warm when you arrive.

Wiser also offers an Eco mode which takes into account the outside temperature and learns how quickly your home warms up and cools down. This way it won’t needlessly turn the heating on early or keep it on for too long.

A boost function on the thermostat, replicated in the app, allows you to increase temperature in a certain room or zone for a set amount of time. This is useful, but it would be nice to have the option to keep the change until the next scheduled temperature change.

There’s also a holiday mode and an away mode. Unfortunately, the latter is a manual control: there’s not geo-location which uses your phone’s position to work out that you’re not at home and turn off the heating.

You won’t find IFTTT support either, so you can’t get around this by setting up your own applet to turn off the heating when everyone is out.

As the Wiser system is brand new, hopefully this is something Drayton will address: it can be added in a software update in the future.

One bonus is that there’s Alexa support from the get-go, so you can enable the ‘Wiser’ skill and ask Alexa to control the temperature in individual rooms and zones. This works well, and hopefully Drayton will add support for Google Assistant soon. It’s unlikely to get Siri support since the Wiser isn’t HomeKit compatible.

We had an issue with a weak signal from the control box to the thermostat and radiator valves. However, after a call to Drayton’s support, we were sent a booster box which are currently testing.

As the system uses RF rather than Wi-Fi to communicate it isn’t necessarily the size of your house which determines signal strength but rather the level of interference from other devices. We installed the Wiser in a standard-sized terraced house, and after plugging in the booster box immediately say an improvement in signal strength.

Drayton says boosters will be sent to any customers experiencing problems for free, at least for now.

We’ve had the system installed for a few weeks and aside from a couple of teething problems, we’ve been impressed with it. It’s simple to use and does the job well.

We’ll be testing it long term and will update this review after a full winter of use, but our initial impressions are that it is very good value. We’d like to see geo-location or some automatic away mode so you don’t end up heating your house when no-one is there, though.

Drayton Wiser Multi-Zone: Specs

One-, two- and three-channel kits

Android and iOS app

Compatible with most boilers: uses standard controller interface.

One-, two- and three-channel kits

Android and iOS app

Compatible with most boilers: uses standard controller interface.

SHOULD I BUY DRAYTON WISER MULTI-ZONE?

The Wiser heating system does exactly what it promises: it’s easy to install and easy to use. It doesn’t have all of the advanced features you’ll find in Honeywell’s Evohome, but then again it is a lot cheaper.

There are a few rival systems, including Hive, Tado and Netatmo, which are now available with radiator valves so you can control the temperature in certain rooms, but none can match Wiser’s low cost.

We also like the app which looks good and is – in general – a pleasure to use. Hopefully Drayton will add a few of the missing features in a future update, but even if it doesn’t, Wiser is still a good choice for most UK homes.